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ACWA Welcomes You
The ACWA Board of Directors, its officers and members would like to welcome you to the online home of the American Chuck Wagon Association, a 501.c.3 organization.
About Our Association
Get To Know Us
The American Chuck Wagon Association started out as a small group of Old West enthusiasts and has expanded to world wide association preserving the American past through competitions, demonstrations, charity and school events and other venues.
Our work is funded by sponsorships (see the power point presentation shown below-right); tax-free donations, honorariums and memorials
(We are a 501.c.3 organization);
cookbook, note card, t-shirt & cap sales in our General Store (go shopping), as well as membership dues.
For donations, honorariums and memorials, you may send a check to:
ACWA, 1723 East Tate Street, Brownfield, TX 79316 or call Nancy Sparks at (806)215-7851 with credit card information.
For Honorariums and Memorials, please include the name of the person remembered/honored, and address for a thank you card.
Youth & the ACWA
Our youth are our future and the ACWA supports activities directly involving them. We encourage producers to offer youth
competition at their cook offs whenever possible. Many of our cooking crews include young people at the cook offs.
The Association also periodically honors an outstanding young cook with the Rookie of the Year award.
In addition, the ACWA offers scholarships (read more) to selected individuals each
year. If interested, download an application here.
Scholarship recipients for the upcoming school year are Caleb Swanson from Canton, SD, and Chelsea Carter from
Prairie Hill, TX.
One of our recipients recently sent an update you may read here.
Another way to involve and educate our youth is with demonstrations. At one cook off, invitations were given to area schools to come on Friday.
There were busloads coming and going a good portion of the day. The students were wonderful and the three host wagons enjoyed sharing their camps
and telling a little about the history of the chuck wagon and the trail drives.
General Store
Want to take home some of that authentic, Old West taste and style? Now you can with ACWA Cookbooks, beautiful note cards and caps!
Chuck Wagon Catering
Many of our members offer catering services. Check out the link above to contact one of them about bringing some of the finest chuck wagon cooking to your next event.
ACWA News & Events
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July, 2017, President's Message
There are several birthdays this month, in fact too many to recognize without missing someone, but here are a few. On the 2nd I reached a milestone, our great nation turns 240 on the 4th and this year ACWA turns 20 years old. In the past 20 years there have been many things happening in ACWA and I hope everyone is as excited as I am about what lies ahead!
I think everyone will be surprised at some of the great ideas of Sheryl Wailes the new ACWA Communications representative. Sheryl will be producing the quarterly newsletter, monitoring the ACWA Facebook account, basically overseeing all membership communications, working with Marilyn Johnson on redoing the ACWA website and working with Maribeth in pursuing educational grants for ACWA to achieve the association's mission "to preserve the history of the Chuck Wagon Era by providing educational opportunities and events to diverse audiences of all ages while continuing to provide youth scholarships and support for wounded warriors".
One of the main areas that interest Sheryl is focusing on is how to get more youth educational events to generate interest in the next generation of chuck wagon owners and cooks.
Planning for the second ACWA Championship Cook Off has already started! It will be held April 5-7, 2018 at the Gillespie County Fair Grounds in Fredericksburg, Texas. The dates for 2019 have been reserved for April 11-13, 2019. This should give everyone plenty of time to make plans for these dates. Also I have been in communications with Randy May and Greg Liles with Cowboys for Heroes regarding the Fort Sam Houston event to ensure there is not another conflict with dates as was in 2017. Since ACWA is using a public facility for the ACWA Championship Cook Off reservations must be made well in advance. April 5-7, 2018 were the only weekend dates available between January and July at the Gillespie County Fairgrounds. If you would like to be a volunteer at the second ACWA Championship Cook Off, please let us know as we can never have too many volunteers!
After the verification of results of the Lazy E Arena, Wild, Wild West Fest, and Bob Drake Memorial chuck wagon cook offs, there are nine wagons from four states qualified for the second ACWA Championship Cook Off. Here are the remaining ACWA sanctioned cook offs where you can qualify for the ACWA Championship Cook in 2018:
A Painted View Cook Off - Westcliffe CO - August 19
Washington County Fair Chuck Wagon Cook Off - Brenham, TX - September 15-16
Staked Plains Roundup - Hobbs, NM - September 15-16 (new sanctioned event)
Chandler Chuck Wagon Cook Off - Chandler, AZ - November 10-11
Well I had better wrap things up for this month. Hope to see y'all at one of the cook offs throughout the year.
"PULLING TOGETHER AS A TEAM IS THE BEST WAY TO GET THINGS DONE." - ANONYMOUS
Until next time, Happy Trails!
Ronnie Sexton
2017 ACWA President
A Little History
In 1996 at a chuck wagon competition in Amarillo, Texas, a small group of Old West enthusiasts and wagon masters talked about an
association. The mission would be to preserve the heritage of the chuck wagon and its use in the short, but significant, era of the cattle
drives. In 1997, in Bryson, Texas, by-laws and articles of operation were adopted and the American Chuck Wagon Association was off and
running. Today there are members in 31 states, Canada, Germany and France.
In 2016, the original mission statement was revised and Sanctioning was approved. The revised mission statement reads as follows:
The mission statement of the American Chuck Wagon Association is to preserve the history of the
Chuck Wagon Era by providing educational opportunities and events to diverse audiences of all ages
while continuing to provide youth scholarships and support for wounded warriors.
The first ACWA Championship Cook Off in Fredericksburg, TX is in the history books.
The weather threatened, but cleared off and everyone had an amazing day. All the crews put out exceptional food that was enjoyed by all. Kudos to the Fairgrounds crew and facility.
Special thank you's to all the ACWA folks who put hours of blood, sweat and tears to make this happen.
And the overall winner is Crosstimber wagon from Mustang, OK, Jack Ramey and crew.
Find complete results for Fredericksburg here.
You can find the 2017 ACWA Championship results and 2018 qualified wagons here.
Click on the dots to see more detail.
Members participate in Cook off competitions, demonstrations, catering, charity events, school visits and many other activities to fulfill that original mission and even surpass the dreams of those organizers. Thank you for visiting our site and we hope you will visit one or more of our chuck wagon events.